Murphy’s Law, "If something can go wrong, it will," has picked in inopportune time to strike the IRS. Just as we head into year-end, trying to cram one last transaction into 2011, the IRS computers have gone down, making it impossible to obtain Federal Employer Identification Numbers (FEIN). Without such numbers, entities cannot open bank accounts and transfer monies into and out of such accounts.
This will cause many transaction to fail or fall into a "no man’s land" as far as determining whether matters have closed for tax purposes.
It is beyond comprehension as to how the IRS could have a system designed to issue ID numbers that would fail. Such a system should have so much redundancy built in that it would be failsafe.
Perhaps taxpayers could now use as an excuse for late filing, that "my computer broke." I wonder how the IRS would accept that?
Santa should have brought the IRS a new computer for Christmas!